Chief of Staff

The Chief of Staff (CoS) to the General Manager is a strategic leadership role designed to act as a force multiplier for the school’s non-academic operations. You will serve as the General Manager’s trusted counsel and "right hand," operating at the intersection of strategy, governance, and execution.

In a complex and hierarchical organization like St Paul’s, this role is the connective tissue that ensures critical improvement initiatives are not only identified but executed with discipline and speed. You will bridge the gap between the General Manager’s strategic vision and the operational reality, facilitating alignment across the Senior Leadership Team, academic heads, and support functions.

Core Responsibilities

1. Strategic Advisor & Counselor

• Trusted Counsel: Act as a sounding board to the General Manager on sensitive and strategic topics, including organizational structure, leadership dynamics, and process efficiency.

• Strategic Planning: Actively contribute to the school’s long-term (5-year) and short-term (annual) strategic planning cycles, ensuring alignment between the General Manager and the Headteacher.

• Listening Post: Consolidate needs, concerns, and achievements from across the school. Report the "temperature" of the organization back to the GM to ensure decisions are grounded in reality.

2. Strategic Projects Management (PMO) and Continuous Improvement

• Execution Engine: Manage and lead (when applicable) key strategic projects (academic and non-academic) as a PMO (Project Management Officer). Turn chaotic or undefined ideas into initiatives with clear plans, defined owners, deadlines, and success measures, ensuring tangible and sustainable results delivery

• Bottleneck Removal: Proactively identify and remove blockers that stall progress. Ensure critical work gets finished without the GM needing to chase updates.

• Time-Sensitive Triage: Lead "SWAT team" responses to time-sensitive issues at the GM’s request (e.g., inspection readiness, compliance matters, campus incidents, or major stakeholder issues).

• Process Architect: Proactively spot inefficiencies through data and observation. Build processes that stick, ensuring improvements and standards survive staff turnover.

• Modernization: Champion the use of modern tools (including AI) to summarize data, systemize workflows, and accelerate execution—using technology to reduce rework and avoidable errors.

3. Governance & Decision-Making

• Governance Rhythm: Design and run a disciplined governance rhythm for the GM and Senior Leadership Team (SPL, ELM, ALM, SLT). Manage meeting cadences, agendas, metrics, decision logs, and action tracking to ensure meetings are productive, not performative.

• Board & Committees: Lead the organization and implementation of Board Meetings and key Committees. Ensure preparation materials are "decision-grade," accurate, and distributed on time.

• Metrics & Dashboards: Build and maintain a set of meaningful school dashboards. Support leaders from across the school in using data wisely to track trends, root causes, and early warning indicators rather than just reporting history.

4. Communication & Cross-School Alignment

• Navigator: Facilitate communication across the school, helping academic and non-academic teams (e.g., HR, IT, Finance, Marketing, Heads of School) to navigate decisions

• Clarity of Message: Draft professional communications, memos, and updates for the GM to the Board and staff. Ensure leadership messages are free of jargon, clearly understood, and effectively cascaded through all levels of the organization.

• Alignment: Coordinate cross-school initiatives that span multiple departments (e.g., wellbeing, safeguarding systems, campus flows), ensuring no silos impede sustainable delivery.

Boundaries: What This Role Is NOT

To succeed, the Chief of Staff must focus on high-leverage activities. Therefore, this role does not:

× Manage the GM’s calendar, book rooms, or schedule meetings (this is the role of the Executive Assistant).

× Perform HR duties such as running performance reviews or giving professional development feedback in the GM’s place.

× Manage formal internal and external communications efforts

× Manage daily priorities, accountabilities and decision making requirements of the entire operational team.

× Get drawn into day-to-day operational firefighting that belongs to functional directors.

Measures of Success

• Leverage: Hours removed from the GM’s plate per week, allowing them to focus on external/strategic matters.

• Velocity: Reduction in cycle time from "decision made" to "results delivered."

• Alignment: Reduction in rework, misunderstandings, and dropped balls across the leadership team.

• Governance: Timeliness and quality of Board and Committee materials and meetings

The Recruitment Journey

Our recruitment process is designed to be rigorous yet transparent, ensuring a strong mutual fit for this pivotal leadership position.

• Stage 1: Screening: All applications will be reviewed against the core competencies and experience required for the role.

• Stage 2: First Interview (Online): Long-listed candidates will be invited to a competency-based video interview to discuss their experience and approach to the Chief of Staff function.

• Stage 3: Panel Interview & Task: Finalists will attend a formal interview (in-person at St. Paul’s School or hybrid) with the General Manager and key stakeholders. As part of this stage, you will be asked to complete a practical assessment task. This timed exercise will simulate a real-world scenario—such as drafting a strategic briefing, prioritizing an executive "in-basket," or analyzing operational data—to assess your strategic thinking, writing clarity, and execution speed.

Applications will be considered as they arrive and the school reserves the right to appoint it at any time.

About us:

St. Paul’s was founded in 1926 and was the first school in South America to receive accreditation from the UK government as a British School Oversees. Fully coeducational, with about 1,000 pupils, aged from 3 to 18, it is a school with history and tradition, but which embraces innovation, contemporary values and the latest in digital learning. We are a world-class school, and an international member of HMC and IAPS, and a member of COBIS and the LAHC. We are proud of our local, national and international reputation and we constantly strive to improve the opportunities for our pupils and staff. Our recent BSO inspection judged us as a leading British School overseas, and you can download the report from our website. Our exceptional facilities place teaching and learning at the heart of the school.

Watch a video of the school:

More details about the school can be found at www.stpauls.br.

Our benefits

• Health insurance

• Dental plan

• Pension plan

• Onsite lunches

• Food card

• Transportation tickets

Safeguarding

The school is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share in this commitment. The offer of the role would be made subject to receipt of satisfactory references, proof of relevant qualifications, identification checks and other safeguarding checks (including Internet and Social Media profiles and exposure), an overseas check if appropriate and a pre-placement medical assessment. Proof of entitlement to work in Brazil is also required where necessary.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

St Paul’s is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. We recognise the value of diverse environments and strive to promote a culture in which all pupils, staff and members of the school community are welcomed and supported to fulfil their potential, regardless of their background or personal characteristics. We oppose all forms of unlawful and unfair treatment, embarrassment, discrimination, bullying and harassment.

Qualifications & Experience

• Experience: Significant experience supporting senior executives in a Chief of Staff, Senior Executive Operations, or Strategic Project Manager role.

• Language: Native-level fluency in English (verbal and written) is non-negotiable.

• Tech Savvy: High fluency with spreadsheets, automation tools, and expert-level comfort using AI tools to write, summarize, and systemize work.

• Context: Previous experience in complex, multi-stakeholder environments (Education, Management Consulting, or large Non-Profits) is highly desirable.

Competencies: Who You Are

• The Operator: You have a strong operator mindset. You can execute gritty details one hour and think at a systems level the next. You take pride in being two steps ahead.

• The Synthesizer: You communicate with precision. You can turn a 1-hour discussion into a one-page summary with clear next steps. People leave conversations with you aligned and energised to generate movement

• The Diplomat: You have high judgment and low drama. You can drive accountability across teams without creating friction, navigating complex relationships with professionalism and discretion.

• The Self-Starter: You are proactive and self-directed. You identify needs before they arise and ship deliverables without needing to be chased.